Mike Kitching

Mike Kitching

Sculptor


18th May 1940 to 28th April 2019
Service 9th May, St Johns Church, Mona Vale.
"A life lived abundantly, creatively, lovingly. An acclaimed artist and sculptor. A true friend. Funny, very clever, great mind, mischievous, honourable and a great story teller." - Robyn Berkeley

Sculptor Michael Kitching was born in 1940 in Hull, England, UK, moving to Australia in 1952. Growing up in England, he often visited galleries and museums with his father, James Digby Percival Kitching, a military trained engineer and builder who was responsible for building two major oil refineries in the UK during WW11. It was through his father’s creative influence that Kitching’s love of art was founded, teaching him also how to work, construct and create with his hands. Representation by: Berkeley Editions Fine Art, 2017 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize - Finalist: Mike's sculpture "Multiple 1"

January 13th 2021

Article Credit: SMH Sydney Morning Herald, 'The artists may not all like each other but they all liked Lucio’s'
Arty beginnings: a group of leading artists taken in 1963 on the balcony of the then Hungry Horse. From left: Frank Hodgkinson, Stanislaus Rapotec, Charles Reddington, William Rose, Carl Plate, Colin Lanceley, John Olsen, Leonard Hessing, Robert Klippel, John Coburn, Robert Hughes and Emmanuel Raft. Image Credit: Fairfax. Article Credit: SMH Sydney Morning Herald, 'The artists may not all like each other but they all liked Lucio’s'

“ THE FIELD REVISITED “ 1968 - 2018 " Opening Thursday 26th April 2018

To celebrate 50 years NATIONAL GALLERY VICTORIA  — Mike was one of 44 leading young AUSTRALIAN Contemporary Artists. His work “ PHOENIX 11 “ 1968 is being exhibited which was originally bought and gifted by BHP BILLITON  to the MILDURA REGIONAL GALLERY. Regarded as a landmark exhibition in Australian art history, The Field opened the National Gallery of Victoria’s new premises on St Kilda Road in 1968. The inaugural exhibition was a radical presentation of seventy-four works by forty artists, around half aged under thirty, who were primarily producing art that was flat, abstract, patterned, geometric or in the colour field style. What was the importance of The Field to you and your contemporaries at the time? Watch the artists video >>

Interviews

A fascinating journey through Australian sculpture over the past several decades through the words of many of its key figures.

"As part of the larger archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Balnaves Foundation Australian Sculpture Archive Project focuses on significant Australian sculptors and sculptural practice. Initiated and led by Deborah Edwards, then the Gallery’s senior curator of Australian art, the project was developed with a grant from the Balnaves Foundation in 2010, which supported the recording and transcription of interviews with artists and other figures in Australian art." - Art Gallery Of NSW.

Interview with Mike Kitching - Download PDF
"Although he won the 1964 Blake Prize for a painting, Mike Kitching (born 1940) is best known for his sculptures in stainless steel, aluminium and plexiglass, which often incorporate light. A self-trained artist, he has also taught for many years, including at the City Art Institute in Sydney.

Interview date 11 September and 23 October 2014." - Interviewer Deborah Edwards, senior curator of Australian art, Art Gallery of NSW


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